I would have gained more than half a million in equity, and have several houses cash flowing like crazy right now had I just done it 6 years ago.If you have a flexible home life, a small amount of capital to deploy, a decent job that is bankable for an FHA loan (3.5-5% down!!!)

The other option is finding a property that requires extensive rehab instead, so you can build in equity & find cash flow by keeping your total acquisition cost low. 

I personally stay away from HE Loans (called 2nd mortgages) because I can't re-use that capital llike I can with a HELOC.A few years ago, we had $97k in equity and a 100% LTV HELOC.

In my opinion, any houses that fit this bill, and fits 1% cash flow rule along with walk in-equity is good deal.

I've got about $80-100k in equity in my personal residence. 

All of the homeshave at 20,000 in equity.

You can also add in equity at purchase to improve the % as well as appreciation (which I never do).Anyways, now that I cleared that up, I feel better.

I have 100K in equity after redoing the inside(flooring, paint, bathrooms, etc).

One could say the $4M in equity is creating the cash flow. 

The big thing we're looking for is built-in equity.